United Airlines has announced that they will be the first commercial airline to offer WiFi Access in-flight. Now, this is still in the works because the frequencies that will be used have not been finalized and approved for broadband use yet - though it is expected to be finalized sometime this fall. No concrete details of price or speed have been announced either, but the frequency that they’re looking at is 8Ghz which will be split into several smaller frequencies. The service will be provided by Verizon.

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In a stunning move leaving me speechless, Nintendo of America VP, George Harrison, has announced that the Revolution will likely sport free emulated retro gaming. This is a far cry from what they have done in the past with GBA retro titles and what was expected from the system for such a unique service. The games will be downloadable through an online system, however third parties developers of the past will likely charge some sort of service fee for downloading their games while Nintendo titles will be free and playable online - where applicable. This is fine, because I’d rather play Mario Kart over Street Fighter online anyway.

With Apple getting a lot of heat lately for their lack of environmentalism, they have decided to take a step to help good ol’ mother nature. If you take your iPod into any of Apple’s Retail Stores, they will give you 10% off of the purchase of a new iPod. The catch is that it has to be the iPod, iPod Mini, or iPod Photo and it has to all be done the same day. Apple has agreed to take the iPods that are brought into the stores and dispose of them without exposing the environment to the hazardous materials that the iPod consists of including lead. The major incentive to this is that if you have an older iPod and you’re battery is on the fritz, you can get a substantial discount on a replacement.

Critics have blasted Apple for the fact that the iPod’s battery is difficult and expensive to replace, giving consumers an incentive to throw them out and buy new ones. Apple recently agreed to extend service warranties and replace batteries for free in certain cases. The agreement is part of Apple’s settlement of several class action suits related to iPod battery complaints.

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PC users were in for a shock when they read PC World Magazine’s Top 100 Products of 2005 list this year, for sure. After Mozilla Firefox and Google Gmail, Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger took a respectable third place out of 100, making it the de facto “Best Operating System” for 2005. To take third on the list in a PC magazine was unexpected, especially when so many of the top choices are free services.

Apple gave a good show with their new product line placing all over the list in many categories. The company’s iTunes software took 35th, 12 points ahead of Microsoft’s Windows Media Player 10, which came in 47th. The Mac Mini showed up at 75th, showing incredible popularity after its release in January 2005. The iPod Photo was also on the list at 78th, and iTunes Music Store showed up at 86th. Comparatively speaking, that’s five products that placed in the top 100 for this year – the second most “wins” after Dell’s six. That’s impressive for a company that has traditionally been ignored by PC users and companies. Perhaps it’s about time people took another look at Apple — PC World obviously did, and liked what they saw.

If you are a monthly TiVo subscriber, it appears that TiVo is desperate enough to keep you as a subscriber that they will lower your monthly bill by 50% if you threaten to leave due to wanting to switch to your cable providers DVR service. This will effectively drop your bill from $12 per month right down to $6. Not bad, although I am not really feeling the AOL-ish way of doing things on TiVo’s part.

Word has been getting around like wildfire that Apple will formally announce tomorrow that they are dumping IBM as their processor manufacturer in favor of Intel. It’s an interesting move which seems to point to Apple’s frustration with the length of time it is taking IBM to get the latest PowerPC into laptops. Intel has been very successful in high-performance, low power consumption mobile computing. The Apple World Wide Developers Conference begins tomorrow, and we will keep you updated.

DigitalReviews got their hands on the f-tech Solar 7 Bluetooth GPS Receiver and put it through the paces. A quick look at the premise behind this GPS device makes it immediately appealing. It has integrated Bluetooth, and is also solar-powered. This is as wireless as it gets. It doesn’t look overly impressive judging from the review, but give it a look yourself if you can put up with the bad grammar.

This week I had a discussion about the impending PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Revolution where I emphasized over and over again “We play the games not the specs sheet”. Having gotten that mantra out of the way there are some fascinating possibilities that this massive shift in computing and graphical power would bring to the video game world. Jacob from 8bitjoystick.com takes a look at the upcoming shift in the home console gaming experience in his column this week.
Continue Reading “Future Eye Candy and Game Play Goodies of the PS3, Xbox 360 and Revolution”

According the the LAPD, an cunning identity thief - in an oh-so-stylin’ hawaiian shirt, as shown in the security photo on the right - used a fake ID to gain access to a shipment of 12,000 Apple iPods worth 2.6 million dollars. The thief walked into a freight forwarding facility and apparently drove off with the cargo unhindered.
Read More | Los Angeles Police Department Online

It sounds like something out of a after school special cartoon, or something. Wizzard Software acquired MediavoxRX Technologies, and with the company, their “Rex” talking pill bottle. Users can either record their own information, or, using text-to-speech technology, the pharmacist can type in the label information and it will be read to the customer. The theory is that this will help prevent accidental overdoses or misuse by customers who are visually impaired, elderly, or have trouble reading.